Update On Puppy & Ankle

On Saturday Kim, the girls and I went to go look at the puppies. The girls were so excited. They kept asking if I was going to bring one home. Needless to say I didn't. The puppies are only 4 weeks old so they have a few weeks to go still before I can even consider bringing one home. The breeder did say if a friend of hers does not take one that I for sure will get one of the two. Not, sure when that decision will be made. She did say at one point a month or so ago she would keep it until it was about 2 or 3 months old just so she could start working on the the house training so I didn't have to do that. So, if anything it is probably a good couple months out before I get to bring one home.


Kalina liked this one..she kept saying how adorable it was. Now of course the two are pretty much the same, just that Althea was holding the other one most of the time.
Althea can't wait for Electra to have puppies so she has puppies at home to carry around and spoil.


Well after two weeks of pain and it not getting better and in fact some ways getting worse I decided to go to the doctor today. He took some x-rays so now I have to wait for the results to come back. The not so good news was that once you injury an ankle it is not like other joints/bones, they don’t heal stronger. So, since I have already had one surgery on this ankle, it is easier to re-injure. If there is no bone damage and it is just soft tissue damage/injury it will take time to heal. For the time being he had me go buy an ankle brace to help support it and absorb some of the shock of walking etc. He said no running, jumping or anything similar for now. He said give it another week or so and then slowly start doing more and just let pain say how much I do etc. Hopefully, he will not call and say there is bone damage. However, this waiting for the soft tissue to heal is going to be long and painful too.

Well, I started looking at houses. Since my dad passed away my mom as been trying to get me to move back to Tracy. I found one I really like, and another one I like as well. The one I really like will probably take longer to hear anything since it is a short sale. The other one I might hear soon on. I just would prefer the 1st house. I hoping I will hear good news on the 1st house soon!

What A Week...

Well this week started off with a BANG. Monday night I go to John's softball game, like I usually do expect this week I decided to injury myself. One of my formar classmates wife and kid was there as well. After talking with her and playing with their son I decided to go sit back down. Well instead of walking around to my seat I decided to climb over the chairs. See there were people on both ends of the row and I didn't want to bother them yet again. So all is well, until I am not paying attention and move my right foot which is on the front part of the seat, that folds up, leaving only my left foot on the back part of the seat. Well, as you can imgaine my left foot flipped the seat up and went between the seat and the back of the seat. INSTANT pain. Of course this is the same foot I had surgery on back in 2005. I just sat down for the rest of the game in pain, and of course laughing. Not to mention John was too and even had to take a photo. After the game I came to work. I was in pain but at least able to walk on it. Of course if anything touched it I would go through the roof, even my shoe touching it hurt. I iced it and tried to keep it elevated while at work but that is not the easiest thing to do. By the time I got home and was able to get a good look at it I could see it was pretty swollen. I was amazed that that it wasn't bruised. As the week has gone on it is a little better but still hurts. Still very tender to the touch, even a sock. And you know how it goes when you hurt yourself, you tend to hit the "right" spot all the time, which it makes it very hard to sleep. Hopefully in the next couple days it will feel better.

Smith Family Pumpkin Patch:


Today was a fieldtrip day with Kalina's school. When I got to the class the teacher started dividing up the kids to parents. When she got to Kalina she said her and Lilly were going with Kalina's "mom". Kalina became very upset. She started crying and saying she wanted to go with her "Auntie". Kalina ran to me saying she wanted to go with me. The teacher looked at me and I told her I was her Aunt. The teacher felt bad but after it was explained to Kalina she was happy again. I haven't been on a school bus in YEARS. Those seats are not made for tall people. After a drive to Brentwood we finally made it to the pumpkin patch. It was not what I expected. I was expecting something like the one in Lathrop but that was far from it. At times Kalina was bored because she couldn't just "play" but I think by the end of the day she had fun. Of course once she got a hold of my camera she was happy..she loves to take pictures. I can say I was happy there wasn't more walking then there already was as my ankle wasn't having the walking on uneven ground.

Dad's Retirement

A couple weeks ago my mom was told by the retirement board that boards' doctor came back with his report and was not recommending that his death be ruled work related. Due to his heart attack mom can and should receive his full retirement because heart attacks are considered work related. My mom was really nervous about what the board would do. She felt they would side with the doctor which would mean she would have to hire an attorney in order to fight the decision. I made several phone calls over the past couple weeks. I contacted a couple people at the Sheriff's office and at my dept. After everything was said and done and a call to an attorney we were prepared for the board to deny the claim this morning. Well, after about an hour of hearing other things the board discussed, the board discussing my dad's case behind closed doors and finally my mom given the chance to speak the board voted to grant the service retirement which gives my mom my dad's full retirement. She was so surprised and thankful that now that part is over with. There is only one more thing to deal with and that is the workman's comp claim. We all know that can also be a long process. I am hoping with the decision today that in November when she goes in front of the workman's comp board that the claim will be settled just as fast and easy.

New Kids On The Block

Last night Allison and I went to a New Kids On The Block concert and had a BLAST. When she asked me months ago I wasn't too sure about it. I hadn't heard their new ablum but remembered I loved their music back in the days. As the days came closer I was really looking forward to going. I had been listening to their music on my iPhone and was really enjoying some of the new songs. Then I found out another friend from work was going and she was really excited about going as well. She kept talking about how she was going to run up on stage or at least through a pair of underware up on stage with her business card attached to it just for Donnie. So, last night finally came. I met Allison at her place in Lodi and we went out to dinner before heading to Sacramento. We get to Arco Arena early so we are just sitting in the car talking since it was so cold outside. As we sat in the car we started to people watch. It was amazing to see what some people were wearing, lets just say some people went back to the 80's for the concert. This included the crimped hair the bright belts, tightly rolled pants and the pigtails. Thankfully, Allison held back her desire to crimp her hair. It was funny to see some guys in the crowd as well. You know they were sucked into going with their girlfriends. So, we finally head inside. As we get to our section we see that it is closed and they are reassinging our seats. We were worried. Well, lets just say when we got to our new seats we were not crying at all.....

The view from our NEW seats......

We were now in the lower level and about 7 rows up from the floor..Yes SEVEN ROWS. Needless to say we were very happy with our new seats. We had a prefect view of the stage! Little did we know that half way through the concert we would be even closer...The stage went black and when the lights came back on we were 7 rows from the NEW stage.....

New stage.....

Now we had an AWESOME view of everyone..lets just say the years have done everyone good! HOT HOT HOT. This night was a great one and I owe it all to my friend Allison!!! Thank you Allison!!!

I Forgot......

In yesterday's post in passing on the blog award I didn't even think to pass it on to a good friend of mine, John. John doesn't blog so the thought didn't even cross my mind to pass it on to him and say what a great friend he is. Well, of course he had to remind me today when we talked. John is someone I met while in the academy this last year. We have become great friends and I know the he is a true friend. He was out there encouraging me and pushing me to get over that 6 foot wall. Even on days where I didn't want to look at the wall or even talk about it he was encouraging. I couldn't have gotten as far as I did this past year without him. Even after failing this year he has been there and continues to encourage me on not giving up. I think at times he took it harder than me that I was not going to be up on stage with him. With his help and friendship I know the day will come when I will be up on stage graduating and then putting on a dark blue uniform ready to hit the streets for the first time. Thank you John!

On Sept 27th (my dad's birthday) my mom and I took Kalina to Fairyland in Oakland. My sister had a wedding to go to and she didn't think Kalina would enjoy it so she had asked my mom to watch Kalina. Knowing that Kalina can be a handful sometimes and that it was my dad's birthday I told my mom we should go some where for the day. I suggested the Sacramento Zoo and Fairytale Town, however my mom suggested Fairyland instead. I guess I had been there when I was young but of course I didn't remember it. It wasn't what I expected at all. It was rundown to say the least. Kalina was really not interested in the stories, however she had fun putting her magic key in the boxes to start the stories. They did have a few rides. I didn't think Kalina would get on them at all, she is very chicken when it comes to rides. However, she got on several, even the ferris wheel. I thought for sure since I couldn't go on the feris wheel with her she wouldn't do it. But she did and then we couldn't get her off of it! While Fairyland is old and rundown, the important thing was that Kalina had a good time, even tho I pushed her down a few slides she didn't want to go down.

Finally I send the above Angel to my friends Cathy and Greg. They have been trying for three years to get pregnant. Unfortunately they have had several set backs. Why is that people who would be loving parents struggle sometimes to bring a child into this world and then you have others who use drugs, beat their kids, live on assistance who can have one child after another. It just is not fair! I know one day Cathy will be blessed and become pregnant and she and Greg will be the best parents and the child will be spoiled! Don't give up Cathy!

Honored!

I have been Honored!!

My best friend chose to honor me today with the "One Sweet Blog Award". I wish I had as much time to blog as she does but even with no school lately I still don't seem to have the time. You would think since I sit in front of a computer at work for at least 10 hours a day at work I would find the time. However, usually when I am work it is veg time if nothing is going on. I usually can't think enough to put things into words for a blog. I will do my best to contuine to blog as much as I can. I would like to pass on the award to my good friend Dave. He has been very supportive with the academy and has even written a paper on how can a 6 foot wall stop someone from becoming an officer (of course I haven't seen this paper yet!) Thank you Sarah and Dave!

Now for an update on the puppy. I now have a chainlink kennel for the backyard, of course it hasn't been put together yet, and a kennel for inside the house. Now I just need the puppy. Last week I talked to the breeder and she was considering giving me a male puppy from a litter that was due on 9/27 (my dad's birthday). However, I received and email from her on Monday stating that unfortunately only 2 of the puppies had survived and she didn't know if she would be able to keep any of them for herself or me. So now I wait to hear if she is going to keep one or if maybe I get the female puppy that is 19 weeks that she currently has or if I have to wait for the next litter. I really want one now but maybe it just isn't the right time still. When it is meant to happen I will get one, at least I have two big items already!

Work is work..somethings never change there.

Oh, on Monday I went up the ther Sheriff's office for a swearing in ceremony. While there I had made arrangements to pick up an award that the City of Mountain House had given for my dad. Little did I know that I was going to be called up during the ceremony and have the award presented to me. This is something the Sheriff's office has had since May and they just had never brought it to my mom, so I figured since I was up there I would pick it up.